About This Class

Bring simple characters to life! Animation is the future of design and an important next step in expanding your design skill set. In this class, I'll walk you through a simple process where you'll learn to build and rig a simple character for animation and share it as a gif!

This Skillshare class is going to break down the process of character animation for you. I will cover simple character creation and animation techniques from design and rigging, through to simple walk cycle animation. You will learn about shape layers, paths, masks, key framing and key frame velocity – and how to apply them to your animations.

What You'll Learn

Design in Illustrator. I'll walk you through simple character design, and how to design with After Effects animation in mind.

Building in After Effects. We will take your character from Illustrator, and import it into After Effects to build your him for animation.

Rigging in After Effects. I'll walk you through the process of rigging your character for simple motion in After Effects.

Walk or run cycle. We'll finalize your action and get your character moving in a scene!

Export your animated GIF. I'll show you the simple process for getting your animation shareable and out there!

What You'll Do

You will design and create a character in an animated run cycle! I will show you how to export your animated GIF to make your work sharable. This process will give you tools to take all of your designs and illustrations to the next level – efficiently and seamlessly!

This course is a primer in the toughest aspect of animation – character animation. Using the strengths of After Effects to create fun movement for motion graphics and animation, we will break down the difficulty and give you the tools to create great animated characters!

This class was lots of fun! This class is definitely easier for people who have a general understanding of After Effects already, however, the class is also not bad for beginners. This was my first time creating anything in After Effects, so there was a slight learning curve. But, the teacher did a good job at explaining each step to build the project, so I never felt lost.
If I could change one thing, it would be for the teacher to indicate if certain steps are for Mac or PC computers. I got a little confused when rendering my animation. I discovered that QuickTime is for Macs, but MP4 files are better for PCs.
I loved how my animation turned out! Thanks for the fun class!

BAFTA Award winning director and animator. Co-founder and owner of Cub Studio. Has worked with many of the worlds leading sporting institutions (including the NFL, England Rugby, the NCAA, the IOC, Canadian Olympic Committee, Fox Sports, ESPN and more) as an animator and brand designer.